First of all thanks for all the helpful advice in the original post, all the comments helped ease my anxiety quite a lot. I'm still at the same position, met some wonderful people and enjoyed the...
First of all thanks for all the helpful advice in the original post, all the comments helped ease my anxiety quite a lot. I'm still at the same position, met some wonderful people and enjoyed the work quite a lot. Also the industry has changed massively since then with agentic coding tools.
I've accepted a new job where I'm going to be working in a much larger organisation that all of you probably know of (isn't big tech). I'll be working as a "AI Engineer" where I'm going to be rotating between various teams and departments and help speed them up with AI, making MCP/Agent2Agent tooling.
I'm very excited with everything I heard in the interview, I also get 1 day off per week as a 'learning day' and the position is remote. I just wanted to ask advice from here again on things I can do to position myself well, this is the first strong 'corporate' job I'm joining.
I'll generally try keeping up to date with new releases and other company's AI journeys as much as possible.
They're hiring a whole team and I was one of the first few engineers to join so I'll wait to see how the team shapes up and where our priorities are
I'll try going to the office as much as possible at the start, I hope I have some colleagues in my city otherwise it might be hard to socialise with other teams/departments.
I do believe this is the direction the industry is headed in, so I'm excited to be spearheading that AI adoption journey in a big organisation and I think this move will be very good for my career/CV.
A little while ago I also made a blog, I want to learn a bit publicly and I think I can use it to show off that I'm putting my learning days to good use.
I would appreciate any other advice you guys might have to offer me, this is my 2nd job and it's a pretty big salary hike so I'm very excited!
Congratulations! Really glad to hear you're doing well and you have an exciting new role! Having AI in the title/focus might be a double-edged sword. This industry goes through violent whiplash...
Congratulations! Really glad to hear you're doing well and you have an exciting new role!
Having AI in the title/focus might be a double-edged sword. This industry goes through violent whiplash every few years and "badges of honor" like "AI" that mean one thing now can mean something very different in a few years. Absolutely lean into it all the way and learn everything you can - and have fun! You've earned it!
Just keep in mind that the Software Engineer's cardinal sin is to assume that everything and everyone that came before them is stupid. When you get older you learn that everything is a big circle - old ideas just get changed slightly and offered up as a "revolution".
A helpful metaphor I point my junior engineers to is "Chestertons Fence" to make sense of it all.
Hi, thanks for the genuine feedback and well-wishes. You're right about the first part, e.g. if I became a Blockchain/NFT developer a decade ago I don't think that would've have been a smart move....
Hi, thanks for the genuine feedback and well-wishes.
You're right about the first part, e.g. if I became a Blockchain/NFT developer a decade ago I don't think that would've have been a smart move. But: I will still try to continuously keep improving on my software engineering fundamentals and skills.
Thanks for also teaching me about 'Chestertons Fence', I knew of the concept but it's good to know the name.
First off, congrats on the new job and big salary hike! I don’t have any advice, just questions if you don’t mind. What does helping teams speed up with AI look like in practice? What sort of...
First off, congrats on the new job and big salary hike!
I don’t have any advice, just questions if you don’t mind.
I'm going to be rotating between various teams and departments and help speed them up with AI
What does helping teams speed up with AI look like in practice? What sort of speed up are you expecting to see? How is that measured?
What will be done for teams who don’t seem to be benefiting from adopting AI?
I do believe this is the direction the industry is headed in, so I'm excited to be spearheading that AI adoption journey in a big organisation
I imagine in a big org there’s going to be at least a few engineers who don’t want to adopt AI. In your role will you bear any responsibility for convincing skeptics?
How much do you think AI tooling will cost in this big org? I’m not sure how many employees is considered big in this case, I just want a sense of scale of the opex for AI.
Hi, valid questions. I had the exact same questions and concerns during my interview process. But: I don't have a solid answer for you right now, maybe in 1 year I'll be able to tell you. About...
Hi, valid questions. I had the exact same questions and concerns during my interview process. But: I don't have a solid answer for you right now, maybe in 1 year I'll be able to tell you.
What does helping teams speed up with AI look like in practice? What sort of speed up are you expecting to see? How is that measured?
About this part, I assume a lot of the work will be in identifying bottlenecks in the 100s of internal tools they use and figuring out what parts of that we can speed up with plugins/MCPs/agent pipelines or if anything new/fancy comes out, figuring out how that fits into the organisation. It's also a R&D role.
This organisation also has a partnership with Anthropic so I assume they'll be going all in.
Totally fair to not have the answers before you even start. I wish I could see this in practice. We don’t use any of this at my job. I hear about this but never see it. Anyway, congrats again, I...
Totally fair to not have the answers before you even start.
figuring out what parts of that we can speed up with plugins/MCPs/agent pipelines
I wish I could see this in practice. We don’t use any of this at my job. I hear about this but never see it. Anyway, congrats again, I hope you enjoy your new role!
Really, even in my current role I have some good examples of that. One would be translation services which we automated with a Claude plugin, I don't want to go into too much details but we use a...
Really, even in my current role I have some good examples of that. One would be translation services which we automated with a Claude plugin, I don't want to go into too much details but we use a 3rd party SaaS for translating (which needed manual human review) and we started using Claude to hit a API and automatically accept/deny new phrases based on past data.
I personally haven't seen a strong usecase of adding a AI check to the pipeline but using openspec and SDD flows has massively transformed my current workflow. And talking about my new job I assume they have a lot of redundant work that can be automated easily with AI.
Congratulations! That's definitely a good opportunity and you've been doing a fantastic job! Here's to two, and many more exciting years to your career, whatever role you will be in
Congratulations! That's definitely a good opportunity and you've been doing a fantastic job! Here's to two, and many more exciting years to your career, whatever role you will be in
My advice might be a bit too general, but here goes. t Think a bit about what success means for you in this new role. Then think about what success means for your boss. Try to validate that. It...
My advice might be a bit too general, but here goes. t
Think a bit about what success means for you in this new role. Then think about what success means for your boss. Try to validate that. It might not always be easy, sometimes people say that the goal is X, but the true goal is infact Y. This may or may not be intentional. I tend to assume good intentions and that people have valid reasons for their behavior (even when they are at odds with what I want). Sometimes it can be useful to write down what you will be measured on and run it by your superiors. That way you can go back to it, check that it's still valid and assess how you are doing. Then again, adapt it if it isn't valid any more or if the approach doesn't gel with you!
I imagine keeping up with other companies AI journeys might be inspirational, but this is probably not something that really matters to your company. So I'd focus on what matters for you and your role and your team/company.
Seems like a sensible approach to try to be present at an office to build some social connections. If your team is fully remote, then it might not be as important. Do set up some good habits to separate work from regular life. If you can then having a separate office space where you only work is an approach I find good. It is otherwise very easy for the work and non-work to bleed into each other. That can be fine, but I personally like to separate them.
Thank you for the advice I appreciate it, I'll keep those points in mind. I was thinking of keeping a 'list of things' I am doing or have done which I can use as a case to build up towards my...
Thank you for the advice I appreciate it, I'll keep those points in mind.
I was thinking of keeping a 'list of things' I am doing or have done which I can use as a case to build up towards my promotion. I will see how my manager is as well and judge his style of working or how in the loop he is towards the work I am doing.
First of all thanks for all the helpful advice in the original post, all the comments helped ease my anxiety quite a lot. I'm still at the same position, met some wonderful people and enjoyed the work quite a lot. Also the industry has changed massively since then with agentic coding tools.
I've accepted a new job where I'm going to be working in a much larger organisation that all of you probably know of (isn't big tech). I'll be working as a "AI Engineer" where I'm going to be rotating between various teams and departments and help speed them up with AI, making MCP/Agent2Agent tooling.
I'm very excited with everything I heard in the interview, I also get 1 day off per week as a 'learning day' and the position is remote. I just wanted to ask advice from here again on things I can do to position myself well, this is the first strong 'corporate' job I'm joining.
I would appreciate any other advice you guys might have to offer me, this is my 2nd job and it's a pretty big salary hike so I'm very excited!
Congratulations! Really glad to hear you're doing well and you have an exciting new role!
Having AI in the title/focus might be a double-edged sword. This industry goes through violent whiplash every few years and "badges of honor" like "AI" that mean one thing now can mean something very different in a few years. Absolutely lean into it all the way and learn everything you can - and have fun! You've earned it!
Just keep in mind that the Software Engineer's cardinal sin is to assume that everything and everyone that came before them is stupid. When you get older you learn that everything is a big circle - old ideas just get changed slightly and offered up as a "revolution".
A helpful metaphor I point my junior engineers to is "Chestertons Fence" to make sense of it all.
Congratulations and best of luck!
Hi, thanks for the genuine feedback and well-wishes.
You're right about the first part, e.g. if I became a Blockchain/NFT developer a decade ago I don't think that would've have been a smart move. But: I will still try to continuously keep improving on my software engineering fundamentals and skills.
Thanks for also teaching me about 'Chestertons Fence', I knew of the concept but it's good to know the name.
First off, congrats on the new job and big salary hike!
I don’t have any advice, just questions if you don’t mind.
What does helping teams speed up with AI look like in practice? What sort of speed up are you expecting to see? How is that measured?
What will be done for teams who don’t seem to be benefiting from adopting AI?
I imagine in a big org there’s going to be at least a few engineers who don’t want to adopt AI. In your role will you bear any responsibility for convincing skeptics?
How much do you think AI tooling will cost in this big org? I’m not sure how many employees is considered big in this case, I just want a sense of scale of the opex for AI.
Hi, valid questions. I had the exact same questions and concerns during my interview process. But: I don't have a solid answer for you right now, maybe in 1 year I'll be able to tell you.
About this part, I assume a lot of the work will be in identifying bottlenecks in the 100s of internal tools they use and figuring out what parts of that we can speed up with plugins/MCPs/agent pipelines or if anything new/fancy comes out, figuring out how that fits into the organisation. It's also a R&D role.
This organisation also has a partnership with Anthropic so I assume they'll be going all in.
Totally fair to not have the answers before you even start.
I wish I could see this in practice. We don’t use any of this at my job. I hear about this but never see it. Anyway, congrats again, I hope you enjoy your new role!
Really, even in my current role I have some good examples of that. One would be translation services which we automated with a Claude plugin, I don't want to go into too much details but we use a 3rd party SaaS for translating (which needed manual human review) and we started using Claude to hit a API and automatically accept/deny new phrases based on past data.
I personally haven't seen a strong usecase of adding a AI check to the pipeline but using openspec and SDD flows has massively transformed my current workflow. And talking about my new job I assume they have a lot of redundant work that can be automated easily with AI.
Congratulations! That's definitely a good opportunity and you've been doing a fantastic job! Here's to two, and many more exciting years to your career, whatever role you will be in
Thank you!
My advice might be a bit too general, but here goes. t
Think a bit about what success means for you in this new role. Then think about what success means for your boss. Try to validate that. It might not always be easy, sometimes people say that the goal is X, but the true goal is infact Y. This may or may not be intentional. I tend to assume good intentions and that people have valid reasons for their behavior (even when they are at odds with what I want). Sometimes it can be useful to write down what you will be measured on and run it by your superiors. That way you can go back to it, check that it's still valid and assess how you are doing. Then again, adapt it if it isn't valid any more or if the approach doesn't gel with you!
I imagine keeping up with other companies AI journeys might be inspirational, but this is probably not something that really matters to your company. So I'd focus on what matters for you and your role and your team/company.
Seems like a sensible approach to try to be present at an office to build some social connections. If your team is fully remote, then it might not be as important. Do set up some good habits to separate work from regular life. If you can then having a separate office space where you only work is an approach I find good. It is otherwise very easy for the work and non-work to bleed into each other. That can be fine, but I personally like to separate them.
Thank you for the advice I appreciate it, I'll keep those points in mind.
I was thinking of keeping a 'list of things' I am doing or have done which I can use as a case to build up towards my promotion. I will see how my manager is as well and judge his style of working or how in the loop he is towards the work I am doing.