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Glue work is still harmful in the age of AI
AI has made glue work less important than it was in the 2010s, because one engineer can do more work, fewer difficult coordinators are needed, junior hiring has dropped, and reports can be automated. The post still says communication with other engineers must stay human.
Reading notes#
- AI reduces the coordination needed to ship, so fewer kickoff meetings, status updates, and similar tasks are required.
- The amount of glue work spent managing difficult people has fallen as the industry has changed after the end of ZIRP.
- Fewer junior hires means less need for people to quietly volunteer to onboard new engineers.
- Write-only reports and similar proof-of-work tasks can be generated with LLMs.
- Communication with other engineers should not be delegated to an LLM, because that damages relationships.
- The recommended position is to avoid becoming the glue-work person, let bad processes fail, and spend most effort on code and on guiding AI agents.