How I work with an agentic team and still feel like a developer

I use a roster. Steve routes. Jules builds. Andi handles the chore-shaped work. Renee hunts defects. Page writes things down. Tesla owns the sharp edges – sync, auth, SQLite, the stuff that bites. Drew fact-checks sourced claims when Notes wanders into Models-and-incidents territory.

That sentence makes some engineers flinch. It sounds like a startup org chart stickered onto a chat window.

Fair. It can become that, if you’re careless.

For me it’s job design. I already wrote the short version: designing agents is mostly job design. This note is the identity half. How I keep “I build software” true when half the keystrokes didn’t come from my fingers.

What “developer” means on this bench

Not “I refuse autocomplete.”
Not “I could recreate Linux from memory on a ferry.”
Not “I never open an agent panel.”

Developer, here:

• I choose the problem and the non-goals.
• I understand the change before it leaves the building.
• I own push, publish, secrets, and dependency bumps.
• I can defend the work if the model vendor vanishes tomorrow.

If those are true, the roster is a force multiplier. If they’re false, I’m a spectator with a fancy transcript. The imposter voice loves that second job description. I wrote about refusing that costume in the Notes post scheduled right behind this lane – same week, same argument, different angle.

Review is the craft

Agents write faster than I do. That is not the scandal. The scandal would be shipping what I cannot explain.

So the craft moved. Less time racing the compiler for line count. More time on:

• Diff literacy.
• Blast radius.
• “Is this the thin slice we meant?”
• “Did we skip Dependency Hygiene because the afternoon felt lucky?”

That is still engineering. Compilers, linters, juniors, and Stack Overflow were already multipliers. Agents are louder. Judgment under constraint did not get optional.

Gates are how I stay the author of record

From security vs theater:

• Confirm before mutate.
• Humans on push.
• Hygiene before features when something graduates to a real home.
• Backup before scrubbing secrets.
• Separate parking lots from product homes.

Theater is a pretty roster with none of those. Real security is quieter. It is also how I keep self-respect on days when Jules lands a thousand lines and my job is to say “not yet” on three of them.

What I tell hiring loops (and myself)

Yes, I use agentic tooling heavily.
No, that does not mean the repo is a mystery to me.
Yes, I will talk about tradeoffs, failure modes, and what I refused to automate.
No, I will not pretend my process is “vibes and a system prompt.”

The semi-automated job search tracker exists because I wanted instruments when the process hurt – not because I checked out. Same posture in the product repos.

The deal

I get speed and coverage from a team that doesn’t sleep.
I keep authorship by keeping the verbs that matter.

Feel like a developer? When I can point at the system and say: I chose this shape, I understand this change, I would ship it again with the lights on.

Instruments, not vibes. Including the instrument that decides who is allowed to say “ship it.”

~ Trish