Engineering leaders should move toward AI immediately, and anxious directors should consider returning to individual-contributor work because it offers more agency.

Charity’s advice is to run toward technological change rather than wait for it, putting AI experience on one’s résumé now. She also says that directors facing anxiety may regain agency by returning to IC work, though the opportunity to do so may narrow. ✦ AI generated

Charity Majors · The Pragmatic Engineer · 2026-08-12 · original ↗

Charity’s career advice for engineering directors: run towards the waves, and get AI on your resume, immediately. It’s an anxious time to work in tech, thanks to all the change, driven by AI. Charity reminds us that anxiety and excitement are physiologically almost the same, but the difference is agency. When you have no agency, you’re more likely to get anxious, and when you do, you’re more likely to get excited. So her advice to anxious engineering directors: consider going back to IC work, where you’ll have far more agency. IC work is well-respected, getting back to it has never been easier, but the window to do so is closing. As she put it: “The next time you’ll have a job interview, you’ll be filtered out if you don’t have AI experience.”

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