I’ve been noticing something interesting in our field lately, and I’m curious if you’re feeling it too.
I’m writing way less code these days, but somehow I feel like I’m doing more actual engineering work than ever. Weird, right?
It’s like AI has become this incredibly capable junior developer on the team. It can crank out code faster than any of us, build scaffolding, connect APIs, even write decent tests. But here’s the thing, it doesn’t know what we know.
You know that feeling when you’re reviewing code and something just feels off? Even if it works perfectly? That’s the stuff AI misses completely. All those hard-learned lessons from late-night production fires, the “oh crap” moments that taught us to always think about auth boundaries, or that time when a quick admin feature became a permanent nightmare.
AI doesn’t get callout anxiety. It’s never had to explain to the CEO why the site went down because of some edge case nobody thought about.
I’m finding my role shifting into something more like being a technical director. Instead of asking “how do I build this,” I’m spending time on the questions that actually matter: Who should have access? What’s our rollback plan? How badly can this break if it goes sideways?
The engineers I see struggling with this change are usually the ones who really identified with being the person who writes the code. But honestly, the ones who are thriving are treating this like getting a really fast, tireless teammate who just needs good direction.
And here’s what I love about this – the better you are as an engineer, the more valuable you become, because you can spot when AI is confidently heading in the wrong direction.
We’re not becoming less relevant. We’re becoming more responsible for the stuff that actually matters, making sure things don’t blow up, thinking through the long-term consequences, being the guardrails.
I’m still doing engineering work. I’m just doing it from 30,000 feet now, and honestly, the view is pretty good from up here.