I’ve been harping on the damage the ever-increasing desire for efficiency has had on the ability to be empathetic in the workplace… and I’m not stopping now!

Another aftereffect of the efficiency trap, is that we’ve created a mentorship desert in our engineering organizations. This is a byproduct of the drive toward commoditization in the software engineering field, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve eschewed the messy, time-intensive, and emotionally taxing work of mentorship and people development.

While we want people to keep learning and growing, and exploring new technologies like AI, we’ve done so without building in the tools and more importantly TIME to make that learning and growth possible.