Ask HN: Are startup job titles evolving in the agentic era?
I’m curious if founders and engineering leaders feel that traditional job titles no longer accurately describe what an early team actually does in an AI-native workflow.
For those of you who have started companies recently, or are radically pivoting toward agentic workflows:
Are you sticking to the classics (CTO, VP Eng, PM)? Or are you finding yourselves drawn toward titles that reflect a more "orchestration-heavy" reality?
How are you redefining "Manager"? If a lead’s primary "reports" are a fleet of autonomous agents or specialized LLM pipelines rather than a dozen humans, does the title "Engineering Manager" still make sense?
The "Full-Stack" Evolution: Are we seeing a shift toward titles like "System Architect" or "Inference Engineer" even at the seed stage?
I've noticed that as the ratio of "output per human" shifts, the traditional hierarchy feels a bit clunky. I’d love to hear from anyone who has intentionally renamed roles to better reflect this new reality - or if you think sticking to standard titles is still better for recruiting and clarity.
I've returned to operating mode, recently founding a company for thr first time in 15 years, and facing this challenge right now.
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