Long Live the Engineering Manager
LeadDev, Monday, October 19th, 2026
AI may automate status tracking, but the alignment and judgment work of engineering managers becomes more critical, not less.
Liz de Moll pushes back on claims that AI makes engineering managers unnecessary, though she agrees AI should absorb status updates and progress tracking.
Expectation-setting, coaching, prioritization and cross-team translation, however, are judgment-heavy work that does not disappear.
During her parental leaves, nothing broke but alignment slipped and coordination landed on engineers.
As AI speeds up code generation, product decisions, testing and rollout have not kept pace, so the cost of misalignment rises and someone still has to connect the work.