The Rise of the Operator (markmaunder.com)

The competition between Anthropic and OpenAI has produced powerful coding agents (Codex via Claude Code) that are rapidly reshaping software development by enabling teams to attempt much larger, bolder projects. These tools don’t just speed up single tasks — they change who excels in engineering organizations. Ops and QA engineers, with systems-level and architectural knowledge, are emerging as especially effective users because they understand how systems hang together, testing methodology, and delivery processes. Senior developers can benefit too, but may need to relearn workflows to fully leverage agent-driven coding. That shift is spawning a new role the author calls “Operator”: a mission-focused integrator who combines systems knowledge, dev management, TDD/QA practices, and even “AI industrial psychology” — the skill of prompting and structuring agents. Practical Operator patterns include having an agent write a product markdown, generate integration tests before any code, reflect on test outcomes to revise the design, and maintain PLAN.md and AGENTS.md to track implementation and progress. Operators also counter agents’ tendency to bloat scope by repeatedly asking “what’s left” and using finish-line prompts to drive completion. The net effect is a move from purely hands-on coding to orchestration: agents do much of the heavy lifting, while Operators shepherd projects across the finish line.