Adam Gonnerman

Generative AI is changing how work gets done at unprecedented speed. By 2030, nearly 40 percent of workers will see their core skills disrupted by AI-enabled systems. For many organizations, this looks like progress. Experts work faster, output increases, and labor costs decline. But beneath these gains is a structural failure that most leadership teams are not addressing. The bond between novice and expert is breaking. When organizations optimize only for short-term efficiency, they undermine the very pipeline that produces future expertise. The Disappearance of Entry-Level Work In roles where AI can perform most core tasks, the share of workers in those occupations has fallen by roughly 14 percent over the past five years. This is not primarily due to declining demand. It is a deliberate organizational choice. As AI systems handle routine work, teams prioritize speed and accuracy. Novices are increasingly excluded because they slow delivery and increase the risk of errors. Manage...

AI adoption in engineering is nearly universal. According to the MIT Nandanda Center, 97 percent of technology leaders have integrated AI into backend systems. Yet two thirds of those organizations report no meaningful headcount savings. Instead, they are accumulating a technical debt burden estimated at 61 billion workdays to resolve. This is not a tooling problem. It is a governance problem. The Hidden Cost of AI-Generated Code Research from Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab shows that AI-generated code is typically simpler, more repetitive, and less structurally diverse than human-written code. Over time, this produces large volumes of code that technically functions but lacks architectural clarity, intent, and long-term maintainability. Traditional technical debt can be prioritized and refactored. AI-generated debt is harder to unwind because there is often no clear rationale behind design decisions. The result is software that works today but becomes increasingly fragile and expe...

My wrists ache. It's been two days since I worked on the line unloading trucks for FedEx, and my wrists still ache. The three week experiment has come to an end, and now I'm considering other options. It was a few weeks ago that I decided to try being a seasonal package handler for Federal Express. My 6 months of unemployment payments had come to an end, and something needed to take its place. It was never going to be enough hours to cover the difference, though. The process was simple enough. I applied online, went through a background check, and was called in for orientation and training. Orientation took just a few hours, and training was covered over two days, a few hours each. Then I went to work on the line, unloading trucks. The first two days they had me pushing heavy packages out onto the conveyer belt from the trucks. It was sweaty work but straightforward enough. Then they put me on small packages, which you would think would be easier, but really it's not. The s...

Job hunting is no fun, and this is especially true in the current job market. Endless applications with little or no response is draining on the soul. Here are some specific annoyances in the job hunt that I feel like listing out.  One of the most common issues is ghosting. This happens when I'm talking to a recruiter or even a hiring manager and they just stop communicating with me. It's a little embarrassing to follow up to try to get a response out of them, so generally I just let it go. Recruiters in particular should be keeping up with their potential candidates, especially after submitting them for a role. But it's about equally bad when I've been through a round or two of interviews and then hear crickets.  Another issue, and probably the most prevalent, is spam. I don't know how many emails, calls, and text messages I receive per week from "recruiters" excitedly telling me about roles that would "be a perfect fit." And then it turns out t...

 Almost 10 years ago I was invited to help set up some computers with Linux distros at a community center in Uberlandia, Brazil. My family had moved to Brazil to be closer to relatives, and I was teaching English as a foreign language while looking for a full-time job in project management. This invite aligned with my interest in doing social good, so I gladly accepted. It turns out that a bank had donated a lot of used computers to the NGO, and we were rehabilitating them for use with one of the Ubuntu derived distros (I don't recall which one). The more I got to know about Estação Vida the more I liked it and felt drawn to its mission. "The philosophy of the Estação Vida Project is based on four pillars: – Ethical Values and Spirituality – Educational Support – Sensitivity through Workshops – Preparation for the Job Market The institution contributes to the neighborhood in a broad way, encouraging the systematic participation of families. It also offers space for the Tele...

The other day I mentioned MoSCoW prioritization method in passing , and I realize it's actually worth a slightly deeper dive. So, I'm including a video here that should help clear it up.

Ideally, backlog refinement should be handled primarily by the product owner with input from the tech lead. The product owner is taking direction from the business on prioritization, and the scrum master simply makes sure refinement takes place. What do you do though when stakeholders aren't in alignment on on the priorities? Here are a few steps I take when this comes up. First, I ensure there's clarity in the backlog items. We need to have well-defined user stories complete with scope and definition of ready clearly outlined. Business value, effort, and dependencies should be plainly stated.  Second, I facilitate a stakeholder discussion based on these backlog items, focusing on organizational goals and not personal preference. This means I need to frame it in terms of return on investment (ROI), risk, and dependencies. Once this is understood by all, we can move on to actual prioritization.  Third, I use a prioritization framework to draw out the relative importance of the ...