Evan Garris — Engineering Manager & Full-Stack Developer

When AI absorbs the friction that used to build engineering judgment, where does the judgment come from?

I'm an engineering manager and full-stack developer. I build software and lead teams, but the problem I keep working on is how engineering organizations actually reason -- how decisions get framed, how assumptions surface or don't, and what happens when the systems outpace the team's ability to understand them.

AI is rewriting the economics of software production, and most organizations are treating it as a speed story. I think the interesting change is what happens to how engineers develop perception, judgment, and the capacity to reason about systems they didn't write. That development used to happen through friction. AI absorbs the friction. The question is how you cultivate judgment deliberately.

I came to software through construction operations -- nearly six years building a company from five people into a premier operation before turning down the COO role to pursue engineering. That background still shapes how I lead. The hardest problems have never been purely technical.