Your title is blurring. QA engineers are writing code, PMs are shipping with AI, and the job you were hired for looks nothing like the one you’re doing now. You’ve asked your manager for a job description and a roadmap — and gotten a shrug. So how do you get role clarity when your responsibilities keep changing, both inside your company and if you decide to move on?
That’s the exact question a senior engineer sent me this week. Here’s his note:
Hi Poornima
In your post last week you mentioned just-in-time learning, which makes a lot of sense given the consolidation happening in the market right now with roles. I started following Elena Verna after one of your earlier posts, and noticed another of hers on how roles are changing.
As a senior software engineer, I’m being pushed to be more of a “product engineer”, and I’ve noticed QA Engineers and PMs have taken over my former role. QA is now expected to write more code and manage automation tools, while PMs are generating code with AI.
I’m OK with my role changing. The challenge is figuring out which role I’m actually performing, how to do the work without stepping on anyone’s toes, and where to focus so I’m only learning 1–2 new skills. I’ve asked my manager for a job description and a roadmap for next quarter, but the ground keeps shifting, which makes it hard for them to outline one.
How do I get clarity on the direction of my role — within my own organization, and if I decide to go somewhere else in the future?
— Sincerely, A Senior Product Engineer
Short answer: the clarity you’re waiting for from your manager isn’t coming, because leadership upstream doesn’t have it either. So you generate your own — by anchoring to the outcomes you own instead of your title, choosing 1–2 skills deliberately, staying visible, and reading the external market to see where your role is really headed. Here’s how each piece works.
Why your manager can’t give you a clear job description
This started long before AI got the blame. The ground was already shifting — usually a teammate’s departure or a re-org, after which you quietly absorbed the slack while your manager “looked to fill the spot.” It was always framed as an opportunity to learn something new.
If you’re a generalist, it’s even harder. A range of skills makes you more marketable, but it also makes it easier for management to justify moving you around, because you’re the person who can absorb anything.
And here’s the part nobody puts in writing: some managers backfill the role. Others notice the team runs fine short-handed and quietly “save money” on the new hire. Those saved dollars and that extra scope almost never translate into more dollars in your pocket.
So asking for a job description and a roadmap is a completely reasonable request for accountability. Just don’t hold your breath — even if you get one, it may stay ambiguous on purpose.
Your manager doesn’t have role clarity either
Here’s why that roadmap never materializes: the people above your manager don’t have one either. Leadership across the industry is stuck between two versions of the same problem.
Some over-adopted AI and are now scaling back — hitting the cracks first: ballooning technical debt, runaway token costs, and the quieter tax of humans babysitting inconsistent output, more oversight work, and burnout, plus the discovery that their own people were better subject-matter experts than the model.
Others are slow to adopt, on purpose — no in-house expertise, no appetite to invest yet, or simply not hurting enough to move.
Either way, the roles on your team are being redrawn by people who are themselves improvising. The clarity you’re asking for isn’t being withheld from you. Upstream, it doesn’t exist yet.
How to get role clarity: 5 things you actually control
You can’t fix leadership’s indecision. So put your energy where you have control.
1. Anchor to outcomes, not the title. You asked which role you’re actually performing. When responsibilities blur, that’s the wrong question — the label keeps sliding out from under you. Anchor to the outcomes you own instead. Get clear on your priorities and deliverables with your manager on a monthly cadence now, not quarterly. If you take on a scope expansion, document it and tie it to your goals or OKRs — otherwise you become the glue no one notices until you leave.
2. Choose your 1–2 new skills on purpose. Don’t try to become the QA-automating, PM-coding, product-engineering everything at once. Pull ten current job listings for the role you genuinely want next, and learn the two or three skills that appear in eight of them. In a blurring role, weight the skills that travel across every version of it.
3. Communicate up, down, and across. Make sure your skip-level knows what you own. If you manage people, make sure they know what you do and don’t do — same for cross-functional partners. Doing someone a solid is fine; doing it constantly turns you into their doormat instead of the go-to. Be the one who drives the work to done, not the one personally doing 100% of it.
4. Don’t let people sideline you. Deciding something isn’t in your wheelhouse doesn’t cost you your seat in the decision. If you’re getting cut out, say plainly that you need to be involved, and why. Does this sound a little political? It is — heads-down-and-ship stopped being enough to get promoted a while ago.
5. Make sure you’re still being valued. A wider role means more range, which makes you more marketable. If your current company doesn’t value it, another one will.
How to get clarity for your next move
Both kinds of clarity — inside your company and for a move elsewhere — come from the same place, and it isn’t your manager’s roadmap. It’s a practice you run yourself.
Inside your company, anchor to the outcomes you own and keep them visible, monthly. For a move elsewhere, those ten job posts aren’t just a curriculum — they’re a compass. They show you what the role you want is actually made of right now, so you can tell whether your current seat is building you toward it or away from it.
In a market where the ground keeps moving, role clarity isn’t a document someone hands you. It’s something you generate — from the outcomes you choose to own, and the market you choose to measure yourself against.
And hear this part: you’re not struggling because you’re failing to keep up. You’re struggling because the roles genuinely blurred, and the people whose job it is to redraw them are improvising too. That isn’t yours to fix. Staying legible and marketable while they figure it out — that’s the part that’s yours.
The one thing to do this week: name the single outcome you want your name on this quarter, regardless of your title, and make your manager and your skip-level aware of it.
A few questions you might still be sitting with
Before you go, here are the follow-ups this tends to raise — the ones I get in my inbox most.
“My role keeps changing — what do I actually do about it?” Stop trying to pin down the title; it’ll keep moving. Anchor to the outcomes you own instead. Set your priorities and deliverables with your manager monthly. Write down any scope that gets added, and tie it to your goals. Make the extra work visible instead of quietly absorbed.
“Is it even worth asking my manager for a job description?” Ask — it’s fair, and it puts accountability on the table. Just don’t wait on it to feel clear. Your manager is likely improvising too, so treat whatever you get as one input, not the answer. The clarity has to come from you.
“How do I choose which new skills to learn?” Pull ten current job posts for the role you actually want next. Then learn the two or three skills that show up in eight of them. When your role is blurring, bet on the skills that travel across every version of it. Those will keep you marketable no matter how your title lands.
“How do I know when it’s time to leave?” When your role has grown but the pay, title, or promotion path hasn’t. And your org shows no sign of changing on a timeline you can live with. The upside of a wider role is that it makes you more marketable. If your company won’t value that, another one will.
If a move is on your horizon, my book Ghosted: A Resume Guide for Senior Tech Leads helps you turn a blurred role into a resume that lands → femgineer.com/ghosted-book.
Prefer to build your own thing? I’m re-launching my free 10-part Ship It series on productizing your expertise → join the waitlist.
