Seminar: From Managing Teams to Managing Agents

_Abstract

Over the past 20 years, my job has evolved from writing code, to building and leading engineering teams, and now, somewhat unexpectedly, back toward building software, this time alongside AI agents.

In this talk, I’ll share what it looks like to work on a small, AI-forward engineering team where agents are becoming part of the everyday development process. We’ll look at what AI is genuinely good at today, where it still falls short, and how the role of a software engineer changes when writing code is no longer the only, or even the primary, way you contribute to a codebase.

Drawing on my experience as an engineer, engineering executive, and now a leader of a small team building heavily with AI, I’ll explore the surprising similarities between managing people and managing agents: providing context, breaking down problems, delegating work, reviewing results, and knowing when to step in.

Most importantly, we’ll talk about what these changes might mean for students entering the workforce now, and which skills become more valuable, not less, as AI becomes a bigger part of how we build software.

_Biography

Brian Hartsock is a 2006 Virginia Tech graduate with degrees in Computer Science and Computer Engineering. He lives in Blacksburg and is currently a Director of Engineering at Fivetran/dbt Labs, where he leads a small team building a new product with AI deeply embedded in both the product and the development process.

Over a 20-year career in software, Brian has worked across the stack—from writing software and building products to leading large engineering organizations. Previously, he was VP of Engineering at Chartio, which was acquired by Atlassian, where he went on to lead the Data Experiences organization responsible for customer-facing analytics products and internal data visualization platforms.

Today, Brian is especially interested in how AI is changing the way software gets built, how teams operate, and what it means to be an engineer in an AI-forward workplace.