#39 | Sunday reads for EMs

My favourite reads of the week to make your Sunday a little more inspiring.

Apr 05, 2026

Paid subscribers get 50 Notion Templates, The EM’s Field Guide, and access to the complete archive. Subscribe now.

What Kinds of New Debt Are Teams Accumulating with AI? (Lizzie Matusov)

tl;dr: Technical debt (code), cognitive debt (team understanding), and intent debt (missing rationale/design docs). AI may actually reduce technical debt while accelerating the other two, because the friction of writing code by hand is what builds understanding.

Software Engineering Splits in Three (Matteo Collina)

tl;dr: AI doesn’t just change how software gets built - it’s causing the industry to fracture into three genuinely different tiers with diverging skill requirements. Tier 1 (tech companies) needs senior reviewers of AI output, Tier 2 (enterprises) needs platform guardrails plus fractional senior expertise, and Tier 3 (small business) creates a “software plumber” role. Also raises an important question: if juniors no longer learn through working on tickets, where do your future senior engineers come from?

What About Juniors? (Marc Brooker)

tl;dr: Marc makes a compelling case that the junior engineer path needs to fundamentally shift - less time in the craft-of-coding apprenticeship, more early exposure to customers, economics, business constraints, and real ownership. The core argument is that engineering is about optimal solutions under competing constraints (people, money, tech), and juniors need to engage with that full picture much earlier than before. His advice to managers: give juniors a project to own, a customer to talk to, a deadline to hit, and a pager to carry.

Nobody Is Coming to Save Your Career (Steve Huynh)

tl;dr: An Amazon Principal Engineer says: your manager isn’t your career coach (they’re too busy), your timeline is your responsibility (not the system’s), and your company’s incentives actively benefit from your comfortable stagnation. This is more of a “career wake-up call” than anything else, but the specific tactics are solid. Worth sharing with senior ICs on your team who seem stuck but haven’t initiated the conversation.

How Do You Know If You’re a Good Leader? (Mike Fisher)

tl;dr: Uses Lincoln’s private self-doubt journal as a frame to argue that introspection isn’t imposter syndrome - it’s a leadership discipline. The practical core is a three-angle self-evaluation model (how your boss, peers, and team each experience you) and a useful reframe on feedback: if it’s correct, act on it; if you disagree, you still own the perception.

I’m an Introvert. This Is How I Get Myself to Speak Up. (Wes Kao)

tl;dr: Decide to speak before the meeting starts (not during), speak early to avoid getting scooped, use writing as a visibility strategy, and prep go-to phrases to buy yourself time. If you have quiet high-performers, try the accountability-buddy approach - DM them in meetings with a low-pressure nudge to chime in.