Agents

Agentic AI: the agent engineer’s stack This piece grew out of the job ads for agentic Python engineers - those requirement lists where PydanticAI/CrewAI/LangGraph, MCP/A2A, evaluation frameworks and vector databases all sit next to each other. I keep running into them, and I’ve noticed that most candidates are hopelessly lost in these questions. Even the prospect of switching to manual labour in the near future doesn’t seem to motivate them to pick up the skills, and there really isn’t that much to pick up. Sure, there is a category of geniuses who mostly live in anonymous comment threads, but I’m talking about ordinary earthly people, the ones I actually meet, and they are who this is written for. So, dear nobody-in-particular, this should help you get through the interview and keep yourself fed for a while longer in these lean times. ...

Agent Teams: The Commander and His Crew In one of my previous posts I wrote about how our role as IT people is shifting — as we desperately try to stay afloat a little longer before inevitably having to retrain for more practical professions. The question then is: how do we manage agents that, in terms of behavioral patterns, closely resemble the chaotic crew of a rattling jalopy barreling across the steppe? The Commander managed them just fine — so let’s give it a shot ourselves. ...

Agents, Agents Everywhere… Our icons are the prettiest (c) Preface: why bother? As you know, in IT there’s no such thing as “doing nothing.” We call it “researching.” That’s the moment when, barely awake before standup, you frantically try to come up with a justification for yesterday’s idleness in a matter of seconds. But even your research might need some artifacts you can present while insisting you’ve been working on it day and night. Not to mention perfectly pragmatic tasks — exploring new topics and terms to impress people and boost your authority (and hang on to that contract in these grim times). ...