"Su wrote that software engineers are asked to perform tasks once reserved for managers: set priorities, resolve conflicts, and give feedback. Rather than building, they're spending time 'pondering and tweaking the machine that builds the thing.' 'The halcyon days of the IC are over,' Su wrote. 'Not because AI codes better than you, but because maximizing your productivity necessitates focusing your time on all the things that are, at the end of the day, manager tasks.'"
"Use AI at work? You might be a manager and not even know it. Philip Su is on the frontline of AI. He worked at OpenAI until 2025, when he left to found his startup, Superphonic. Before that, he worked at Microsoft and Meta. In January, Su made a provocative claim on Substack: 'AI Killed the Individual Contributor.' Su wrote that software engineers are asked to perform tasks once reserved for managers: set priorities, resolve conflicts, and give feedback."
Software engineers are increasingly performing managerial tasks such as setting priorities, resolving conflicts, and giving feedback because AI delegation changes how work gets done. Engineers spend more time overseeing and tweaking AI systems that build products rather than exclusively coding. The individual contributor role is becoming less distinct as productivity depends on management-like activities. Human managers remain necessary to solve coordination problems that AI cannot address. Simultaneously, many large tech companies are flattening hierarchies and reducing management layers while championing founder-mode culture and higher IC-to-manager ratios.
#ai-assisted-software-engineering #individual-contributor-role #managerial-tasks #org-flattening-in-big-tech
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