Climbing Up and Down the Stack in the Age of AI
What happens when coordination gets cheaper
With the rise of AI, it feels like people across the org chart are shifting positions.
Very senior engineers seem to be moving up the stack. They are spending more time thinking about systems architecture, leverage, and long-term design, while letting AI handle more of the implementation.
At the same time, I have noticed managers jumping back into IC work.
Coding. Shipping. Driving specific initiatives forward.
The distance between “manager” and “operator” feels smaller than it used to.
The lines are blurring.
ICs are becoming managers, not of people but of agents.
Managers are becoming ICs, pushing work through agents instead of through layers of coordination.
Agents reduce the cost of reporting, synthesis, and cross-team translation, functions that have historically lived in the middle of organizations. When that coordination layer gets cheaper, the structure around it starts to change.
It reminds me of how the internet reduced distribution gatekeepers. Artists did not need record stores to reach audiences in the same way. Writers did not need publishers to distribute their work. Distribution did not disappear. It compressed.
Agents feel similar.
An engineer with a clear vision can now use agents to do market research, synthesize customer feedback, draft specs, and even generate initial implementations without needing multiple layers of intermediaries.
An artist could, in theory, use agents to handle promotion, outreach, and operations, owning more of their identity and business end to end.
None of this eliminates leadership. But it does seem to compress coordination.
And that compression raises a deeper question:
If reporting, synthesis, and translation can be automated, what actually becomes scarce inside an organization?
I do not know exactly where this goes, but I have noticed something-
as agents get better at writing, synthesizing, and coordinating, leverage seems to shift toward the people actually executing.
It feels less about managing people and more about managing clarity and direction.