5 Practical Steps to Future Proof Your Career in the AI Era

There will only be two roles on a product team, everyone will be a manager, and more trends to turn AI into your biggest career advantage

Dear subscribers,

Today, I want to share 5 practical steps to future-proof your career in the AI era.

Recently, I came across this doom and gloom email from Fiverr's CEO:

Source

AI may be coming for your job, but I think it can also be an incredible career accelerator if you know how to prepare.

So let’s walk through 5 trends that you can take advantage of now:

1. There will only be two jobs on a product team

2. Use AI to expand your T-shape skills

3. Everyone will be a manager of AI agents

4. Agency is the only moat

5. Automate the drudgery to make work more fun

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1. There will only be two jobs on a product team

Many product teams today have a few engineers supported by a PM, designer, data scientist, and maybe a few other functions.

But in the near future, I think many teams will have just two roles:

1. Generalists who can take an idea to working prototype by themselves.

2. Specialists who are in the top 5% of their function or domain.

This is exactly what leaders like Amjad (CEO of Replit) predict will happen:

In this world, you don’t want to be stuck in the middle. Instead, you want to…

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2. Use AI to expand your T-shape skills

A T-shaped leader has deep expertise in one area and enough breadth to contribute to many others. AI can give more depth to your T-shape skills:

For example, I’m not a researcher, designer, or engineer, but I can use:

1. Deep Research to do research in hours instead of days.

2. Figma Make to create polished prototypes despite my limited design skills.

3. Cursor to build simple apps to solve my own problems without engineers.

At the same time, I still specialize in building with the community, crafting quality products, and verticals like creator and consumer.

This combination — depth in one area with AI-enhanced breadth — will ensure that you’ll continue to be in high demand moving forward.

But where should you build depth? Well, one skill that everyone needs is…

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3. Everyone will be a manager of AI agents

In the near future, everyone will manage a team of AI agents. So my hot take is that management skills will only become more important in the AI era.

I’m talking about skills like:

1. Giving specific instructions

2. Setting clear expectations

3. Providing examples of what “good” looks like

4. Editing and evaluating work

These are the exact skills that you need to become good at AI prompting and evaluations. For example, I rarely write a PRD from scratch anymore. Instead, I "manage" my AI intern to edit it based on my guidance.

Below’s a preview of the prompt that I use to do this. You can access it and my 25+ other go-to AI prompts by becoming a paid subscriber.

I use this prompt to draft PRDs instead of writing them from scratch

Speaking of management skills, you should also manage yourself to…

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4. Build high agency as your moat

Nat Eliason shared a quote during our interview that has stuck with me:

“If you wake up and decide what to make, your job is safe. If you wake up and get told what to do, then your job is at risk.”

In the AI era, people who can take initiative and find a way forward in ambiguous situations will thrive.

1. In a company, agency means pursuing initiatives you believe in and not taking no for an answer. For example, I ran a vibe coding session at Roblox without waiting for approval.

2. Outside of work, agency means always finding time to tinker. KC (Roblox’s Chief People Officer) is a perfect example. Despite his executive role, he makes time to build AI prototypes and share his learnings on LinkedIn.

My hope is that job titles and credentials will matter less in the AI era. Instead, we will reward people who can deliver value and just do things.

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5. Automate the drudgery to make work more fun

I love anti to do list from Claire Vo

Let’s be honest, there are many parts of a tech job that are not fun.

I’m talking about taking meeting notes, editing Google docs, writing Slack updates, and more. You should use AI tools like projects to streamline this drudgery so you can focus on the fun — getting to know your users and building great products.

The AI era rewards people who can:

• Thrive in small, autonomous teams

• Wear multiple hats comfortably

• Iterate through rapid feedback loops

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So what should you do right now?

Here are five concrete actions to future-proof your career starting today:

1. Pick your lane. Commit to becoming a generalist or a specialist. The middle is disappearing fast.

2. Use AI to expand your T-shape skills. Expand the depth of your horizontal skills using AI as your co-pilot.

3. Learn to manage AI agents. Learn to give AI clear instructions with examples and write effective AI evaluations.

4. Start something without permission. Solve a problem at work nobody asked you to fix or launch a side project.

5. Automate the drudgery. List the three most tedious parts of your job and use AI tools to streamline them this week.

AI is changing employment fast, but there’s no need to panic. Instead, take the steps above to position yourself ahead of the curve.

This Sunday, I’ll share a new interview with Claire Vo (CPO LaunchDarkly) that walks through how she follows many of the steps above. See you then!