What pilots do can be automated. I mean, it's not easy, but then again, planes nowadays can land themselves by themselves. As the automation gets better, you need pilots more and more just for emergencies, and maybe if you only use pilots for those cases, then a) your pilots don't gain the experience they need to be useful in emergencies, and b) you under-utilize them. And maybe that means you can't really automate pilots after all. But still, what pilots do is very machine-like.

What devs and mgrs do is less machine-like, and it follows that what works for "making sure you have pilots who can fly" doesn't quite translate to "making sure that you have managers who can manage".