Milecia 🍟 M.

I am at the Computer Science Teacher Association (#csta2026) this week. I am not a Luddite but I am surprised at the emphasis on AI being talked about here. One session that I thought was going to be on teaching students good AI skills wound up being kids don't need to program, they need to learn how to write clearly so the AI can write the program for them. His theory was the people who wrote in 1s and 0s complained about people writing in assembler, who complained about those who wrote in compilers..etc. What are your thoughts? Should we teach computer science programing?

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Watching engineering teams closely over my career, one thing stands out: The difference between senior, mid, and junior engineers isn’t coding. It’s judgment. It’s seeing how systems connect, spotting risk before it hits, translating ambiguity into clarity, and knowing when something doesn’t feel right. AI makes everyone faster. It doesn’t make everyone wiser. I’d love to hear from other teams — what traits are you seeing separate senior engineers in your org today? #EngineeringLeadership #AInative #CTO #SoftwareEngineering

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Titles in robotics are getting harder to use as a measure of seniority. I've talked to "Staff Engineers" who own an entire subsystem and influence architecture across the robot. I've talked to other Staff Engineers whose scope is much narrower. Same title. Very different level of responsibility. And startups make this even more complicated. Someone can become a Lead or Principal very early because the team is small. At another company, that same person might be Senior. That doesn't mean they're over-titled or under-titled. It just means the title doesn't tell you enough. When I'm evaluating someone, I care much more about questions like: What did you own? What decisions were yours? How many people depended on your work? What happened when something broke? Did your work make it into production? Were you influencing one component or the architecture around it? What did the company trust you to figure out? I think companies get into trouble when they screen too heavily around title. Especially in robotics. Scope tells you more than the level printed next to someone's name. #Robotics #EngineeringCareers #EngineeringLeadership

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Where do the senior engineers of 2030 come from if companies stop hiring junior engineers today? That question stuck with me from the latest ShipTalk. Adam Arellano and Martin R. are joined by Papanii Okai to talk about how AI is changing engineering careers, why the timeline from junior to senior could shrink dramatically, and why companies that stop investing in new talent may be setting themselves up for a bigger problem later. Worth a listen: https://lnkd.in/gtKewd3g

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