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Comment by agentultra | Hacker News Reader

> this fact is a trap for competent but unagentic engineers

Is “unagentic engineer” a euphemism for human/not-AI?

Unfortunately for companies whose engineers work this way, they’re on a one-way trip to expensive cloud bills, data breaches, and frustrated customers.

A good amount of that “never done,” work is:

- Patching security vulnerabilities

- Fixing mistakes made due to lack of planning/testing

- reducing costs due to lack of planning (ship it now, make it better later)

- responding to customer feedback

If the business you’re working in doesn’t see the value in the work you do then, when you can, find a new place to work. They’ll sink their ship well enough on their own.

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Of course you're right. But that's the point of the article.

Companies, departments and teams operate on a spectrum from reality-centred to status-centred.

In a reality-centred culture all the things you mentioned matter. Reality-centred management understands this, manages it, and rewards it.

Reality-centred cultures are better at medium/long-term planning and at handling issues rationally.

In a status-centred culture the most important product is status in the hierarchy. A "competent" engineer delivers status to superiors. That's their only job. The quality of the product, codebase, and the customer relationships is secondary - sometimes irrelevant.

Status-centred cultures tend to be reactive, not innovative, and the orientation is emotional, not rational. Hierarchies are strict, communication is poor, and low-status people are treated badly. (Because how else is everyone else supposed to know they're low-status?)

No one cares when things work smoothly, but if there's a problem that causes a loss of status, someone has to be blamed for it.

Status cultures don't necessarily implode. If they have an effective monopoly, they can survive for decades.

They're more likely to seem like huge players until suddenly one day they aren't any more, and everyone wonders what happened.

Nice reply, all true.

> Status cultures don't necessarily implode.

True! And they're often not a great place for developers to work (unless you want to join in and become a manager and leave development behind).

> Status cultures don't necessarily implode.

Sometimes they do, though. And while it’s spectacular to see it up close, it won’t make you feel any better.

“Unagentic” is a terrible made up word to say that employees lack agency.

Basically, people like when employees show initiative, operate independently and influence their surroundings independently. At least they like to say that.

It’s a common trap for engineers, many of whom like to burrow in and crank out stuff. You’re toiling away slaying tickets and doing your thing, but become invisible or don’t realize managements attention elsewhere.

It doesn't have to be that way, but that's certainly the default unless executives put in the work to make certain kinds of work legible.

A great example that is less cynical is interface design - I greatly enjoy building user interfaces that are correct for lots of little interactivity details. It pains me to release an interface that breaks on tablets, or where the container doesn't have padding so the button awkwardly juts up against it.

This kind of attention to design detail is not automatically rewarded except for at companies and startups for whom that's something that is valued, and design intuition is praised. I've had people come to me for work in the past specifically because they love that I pay extra attention to this stuff.

That said, in many places this is not appreciated at all and none of this would be a value add.

> Is “unagentic engineer” a euphemism for human/not-AI?

Pretty sure it means someone who plods along in life, going with the flow, working but with no self-conceived roadmap of ambition, low extroversion, low desire to make decisions, etc

> Is “unagentic engineer” a euphemism for human/not-AI?

I read this as engineers without agency - those who have little to no freedom to make any decisions on their projects.

> Is “unagentic engineer” a euphemism for human/not-AI?

No, it refers to people that are not "high agency", i.e. they might be smart and competent but need guidance on what to work on, as opposed to taking initiative themselves.

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