Team Leadership for developers is at a very tricky point right now.
We have had code generators in the past that improved developers’ work, but we would never compare a developer to a generator.
But now, agents and application generation are letting those thoughts permeate into our minds as we work and lead our team.
It’s easy to show up to a meeting, now, and have a user type in a prompt, during a meeting, and show the app they have created in minutes.
To add to this, many organizations are tracking token usage to ensure developers are using AI and integrating it into their work – yes, token usage is good, but the amount of token usage is akin to using lines of code as a metric of growth, which it’s not.
The balance is there, and for leaders, the answer is not straightforward when, for years and years, their main role has been to focus on shipping.
AI Token Leadership will only get you so far and can be a slippery slope.
People need to grow, people need to feel like they are growing, all the elements of being a great developer still apply today – drive, initiative, leadership, delivery, and growth – those core tenets have not and will not change – how they are implemented might in the age of AI.
Shameless plug, much of what I wrote about in Code Your Way Up still applies to the AI era as it did before; it’s not about the compilers and the languages and the frameworks, it’s about the people.
