Interesting write-up - But, wanted to understand your thoughts around EMs role in the changing landscape as teams shrink - what should be focus areas to have an impact and be indispensable for the org or industry?
While teams will shrink, our responsibilities will grow - wider scope of product / technology.
I assume, thanks to AI assisted development, what we built in 7-8 people in past years, will be achievable by 5-6 people.
In such config, EMs should:
- come back to coding - now it's possible (I'm the best example of it - I do code almost every single day - something what wasn't possible in past years)
- bridging technology <-> UI <-> Product/Business even better. Understanding why you build what you build + how is your product / feature / business is doing is a must now. We must be better in telemetry, analytics, BI to ensure that we build right things and we bring real outcomes to the table.
In 2026 it'll be easier than ever before to build things. The next stop is to ensure we build right things.
Thanks for the note - agree on your pointers - But on coding ( happy to plug in there personally) - but how much actual coding will have impact / space already constrained for devs as they are competing with AI tools acting as junior devs - what I observe is the - tech architecture / system design - how things fit together in optimal way or novel approach to a tech problem - might differentiate you from the crowd! morphing from solution space to problem space - along with NFR code reviews - might be helpful?
I observe that in my AI agentic coding as well. Assessing architecture decisions and driving them continuously - esp evolving from one arch to another when it's the right time, is critical.
AI will generate whatever we want. But we're still drivers.
Interesting write-up - But, wanted to understand your thoughts around EMs role in the changing landscape as teams shrink - what should be focus areas to have an impact and be indispensable for the org or industry?
While teams will shrink, our responsibilities will grow - wider scope of product / technology.
I assume, thanks to AI assisted development, what we built in 7-8 people in past years, will be achievable by 5-6 people.
In such config, EMs should:
- come back to coding - now it's possible (I'm the best example of it - I do code almost every single day - something what wasn't possible in past years)
- bridging technology <-> UI <-> Product/Business even better. Understanding why you build what you build + how is your product / feature / business is doing is a must now. We must be better in telemetry, analytics, BI to ensure that we build right things and we bring real outcomes to the table.
In 2026 it'll be easier than ever before to build things. The next stop is to ensure we build right things.
Thanks for the note - agree on your pointers - But on coding ( happy to plug in there personally) - but how much actual coding will have impact / space already constrained for devs as they are competing with AI tools acting as junior devs - what I observe is the - tech architecture / system design - how things fit together in optimal way or novel approach to a tech problem - might differentiate you from the crowd! morphing from solution space to problem space - along with NFR code reviews - might be helpful?
I very much agree! 💯
I observe that in my AI agentic coding as well. Assessing architecture decisions and driving them continuously - esp evolving from one arch to another when it's the right time, is critical.
AI will generate whatever we want. But we're still drivers.