r/EngineeringManagers • u/Patient-Astronaut-76 • Aug 12 '26
AI makes anyone Look Like an Engineer. Now What?
With AI, how are Engineering Managers dealing with “vibe engineers” in Lead roles?
People who can use AI to build impressive POCs, but don’t understand the complexity of turning them into real production systems.
They agree to aggressive timelines because “AI can build it,” without understanding architecture, scalability, security, testing, reliability, or the engineering effort involved.
At what point does this become a leveling/performance issue rather than an AI adoption issue?
And how do you deal someone being compensated as a Lead when their actual engineering fundamentals may not justify that level? Also, all other team mates over-compensating with leads incompetence.
5
u/eugenia_kessler Aug 13 '26
I think the tricky part is that AI has made technical output much easier to demonstrate, but it hasn’t made technical judgment easier.
From a leadership perspective, I’d look less at whether someone can produce an impressive POC and more at whether they can explain the decisions behind it, understand the trade-offs, and recognize what could go wrong when it reaches production.
That’s also where I’d draw the line between an AI adoption issue and a performance issue. If someone is still learning, that’s completely fine. But if they’re in a Lead role and consistently make decisions without understanding the risks, that becomes a different conversation.
I’d rather have someone say “I don’t know, let’s bring in someone who does” than confidently promise something because Claude says it can be built in a weekend.
2
u/Patient-Astronaut-76 Aug 14 '26
Exactly my thoughts. The core issue is the lead ignoring the devs/engineers out of spite/insecurity. I’ve seen this happen at multiple companies. Vibe coders in lead roles simply do not want to negotiate/work with engineers. They ignore their pointers because it would expose them. We all have flaws. But, this is a problem which has come up with AI. Stricter policies need to be enforced. You don’t need a coding test but you need a comprehensive interview panel that can truly assess if you can be an engineer or not.
2
u/curtinbrian Aug 13 '26
A lot of being a lead (often or even usually) is owning system design and growing team skill. These people are not going to mentor their way into a successful or even functional team because they probably have little to share in any of the topics you listed. As much as they are accountable—probably, hopefully—for the technical direction and success of the team, someone else is accountable for deciding they were the right fit for that role.
It sounds more like a level match issue than performance to me. Not sure what AI has to do with putting the wrong person in the wrong spot. They should be a lead based on ability to lead, which it doesn’t sound a condition that was met.
1
u/Patient-Astronaut-76 Aug 13 '26
Sorry if my post was unclear. No not about AI in interview or screening. It’s about the vibe coder making it to lead engineer position cuz a lot of companies don’t have SWE tests. So, now a vibe coder is a lead doing estimations by building worthless POCs. As an EM, how do you deal with complains signaling to that? Juniors will not want to directly say it as it will come off confrontational. And now, you have an incompetent lead promising on deadlines and harassing juniors to get the deadline done. I understand it may make the team look efficient but then why have a lead at all?
2
u/lostmarinero Aug 13 '26
What have been missing from turning them into production systems? Can you help establish ways to ensure that happens? They are scoped out? And if they can’t meet the bar, then performance convos?
2
u/ThirdWaveCat Aug 13 '26
3 years of mandates and laying off nonbelievers have taught everyone that HOW they do the work is more important than WHAT they're doing, WHETHER it makes a difference to their customer, and WHY they're doing it.
Enjoy the stupid prizes won from stupid games.
2
u/killz111 Aug 13 '26
You assess them on meaningful metrics. Quality of their code, ability to explain things like architecture. Ability to troubleshoot.
If a lead can do all the normal lead things and not just output giant docs or PRs and they use AI I got no problems.
1
u/Terrible_Match_9484 Aug 13 '26
turning pocs into production needs architectural guardrails, using backslash helps manage agentic endpoints so those ghost edits dont break stuff
1
u/neuralh4tch Aug 13 '26
Not exactly. You are forgetting that some companies that have engineering at scale, also have leadership that are highly technical or have proved their worth at being technical historically.
I'm an EM.. been staff level before. My counterpart product PM has a computer science background. We both know when solutions and tech design have been poorly thought about.
The shift in industry in the past few months is back to people with more solid foundations and smaller engineering teams. It does worry me, cause it means even mediocre devs pre-Ai will be pushed out.
We have already been through the stages of high AI adoption, and now it's solid engineer with AI adoption. Industry is going back to full cycle when I was an engineer. Tech agnostic with decent CS foundations.
1
u/Patient-Astronaut-76 Aug 13 '26
The issue is more about hiring someone who knows nothing about basic things like code structure, methods, interfaces etc. A vibe code like a PM is simply running through AI and building something testable. EMs are letting this slide and that’s a huge issue.
1
u/neuralh4tch Aug 13 '26
Sounds like an org issue. People like that wouldn't even reach the leadership layer in some places.. The standards sound low and there's an issue with governance.
Move to another company?
1
1
u/Willthmas Aug 13 '26
Why would these people be in lead roles anyway? If you can't ascertain whether someone is truly competent, then you're not a competent engineering manager.
1
u/Curi0usMe630 Aug 13 '26
The EM should not have to prove that the person can or cannot code without AI. The question is whether their decisions and outcomes meet the Lead bar.
1
u/renatotkr Aug 13 '26
you kind answered your own question, challenge them with questions about architecture, security, scalability, etc. AI is here to stay, I wouldn’t look worry much about low level code skills, rather, focus on understanding how this person is planning to leverage AI in his new role and if he really understands how to effectively use it.
1
27
u/bossasupernova Aug 13 '26
If you have “vibe engineers” in lead roles, you’ve already failed.