I’m curious if founders and engineering leaders feel that traditional job titles no longer accurately describe what an early team actually does in an AI-native workflow.
For those of you who have started companies recently, or are radically pivoting toward agentic workflows:
Are you sticking to the classics (CTO, VP Eng, PM)? Or are you finding yourselves drawn toward titles that reflect a more "orchestration-heavy" reality?
How are you redefining "Manager"? If a lead’s primary "reports" are a fleet of autonomous agents or specialized LLM pipelines rather than a dozen humans, does the title "Engineering Manager" still make sense?
The "Full-Stack" Evolution: Are we seeing a shift toward titles like "System Architect" or "Inference Engineer" even at the seed stage?
I've noticed that as the ratio of "output per human" shifts, the traditional hierarchy feels a bit clunky. I’d love to hear from anyone who has intentionally renamed roles to better reflect this new reality - or if you think sticking to standard titles is still better for recruiting and clarity.
I've returned to operating mode, recently founding a company for thr first time in 15 years, and facing this challenge right now.
0 comments
—
Ask HN: Are startup job titles evolving in the agentic era? · HackerTrans
For those of you who have started companies recently, or are radically pivoting toward agentic workflows:
Are you sticking to the classics (CTO, VP Eng, PM)? Or are you finding yourselves drawn toward titles that reflect a more "orchestration-heavy" reality?
How are you redefining "Manager"? If a lead’s primary "reports" are a fleet of autonomous agents or specialized LLM pipelines rather than a dozen humans, does the title "Engineering Manager" still make sense?
The "Full-Stack" Evolution: Are we seeing a shift toward titles like "System Architect" or "Inference Engineer" even at the seed stage?
I've noticed that as the ratio of "output per human" shifts, the traditional hierarchy feels a bit clunky. I’d love to hear from anyone who has intentionally renamed roles to better reflect this new reality - or if you think sticking to standard titles is still better for recruiting and clarity.
I've returned to operating mode, recently founding a company for thr first time in 15 years, and facing this challenge right now.