2026 Engineering Reality

3 posts in this series, in reading order.

  1. Agent Sprawl: The 2026 Engineering Risk Your Auditor Hasn't Named Yet
    · Unknown numbers of AI coding agents run in parallel — no audit trail, no isolation, no per-team measurement. By 2026 that's an audit finding.
  2. The Senior Engineer Signal: The 2026 Risk Your Velocity Metrics Hide
    · Juniors get the biggest boost from AI; seniors trust it least. That split is your earliest read on engineering risk, and on the talent you're about to lose.
  3. Merge Debt: The 2026 Bill Your Parallel AI Agents Are Running Up
    · Three agents finish in parallel. Main takes one landing at a time. METR's perception gap, the rebase tax, and why Merge Debt is the number nobody plots.