Being an engineer in the AI era

I hesitated to write this. Not because I don’t have an opinion about AI in software engineering, but...

I hesitated to write this.

Not because I don’t have an opinion about AI in software engineering, but because it sometimes feels increasingly difficult to have nuanced conversations about it.

I worked in an environment where being “AI native” was part of the identity. And when a technology becomes part of a company’s identity, questioning it can feel almost uncomfortable. The conversation quickly moves from “where does this create value?” to “how do we put AI everywhere?”

But I think we need more honest conversations.

AI is powerful. There is no doubt about that.

It helps me write code faster. It helps me explore unfamiliar areas of a codebase. It can remove repetitive work and accelerate experimentation.

But there is something important we should not forget:

Speed is not the same as progress.

Not everything needs AI

The truth is, not every problem needs artificial intelligence.

Not every business needs AI. Not every product needs AI features. Not every interaction needs to be optimized or automated.

Especially in industries built around people.

Hospitality, for example, is fundamentally about human connection. The experience someone remembers is often not the automated process behind the scenes, it is the person who cared, noticed, helped, and went the extra mile.

There is a Greek word I love: meraki.

It means putting a part of yourself into what you do. Doing something with love, creativity, and care.

And I think this concept is becoming increasingly important in software engineering.

The craft behind the code

When you genuinely care about your work, you don’t just want to eliminate every inconvenient part of it.

The difficult parts are where you grow.

Reading confusing code. Debugging strange production issues. Getting feedback from teammates. Having discussions about architecture. Making mistakes and learning from them.

These experiences build engineering intuition.

Software engineering has changed dramatically in the last few years. AI-assisted development is becoming part of our daily workflow, and I believe there is a lot of value in it.

But the reason AI makes me better today is because I learned the fundamentals before it existed.

I learned how systems behave. I learned how to debug without an answer being generated for me. I learned how to question solutions instead of blindly accepting them. I learned through feedback, collaboration, and years of solving problems.

AI amplifies existing knowledge. It does not magically create engineering judgment.

What happens when we outsource thinking?

One of the things I worry about is not AI itself.

It is the temptation to outsource the parts of engineering that make us engineers.

Architecture exploration. Technical discussions. Understanding trade-offs. Questioning assumptions. Designing solutions together.

A company is not just a machine that transforms requirements into code.

A company is a collection of people with different experiences, perspectives, and expertise. The best solutions usually appear through conversations, disagreements, and collaboration.

If we delegate all exploration and architecture decisions to agents, what happens to the collective intelligence of the team?

What happens to the engineers who no longer build intuition because they never had to struggle?

What happens to the products created by people who never deeply understood the problems they were solving?

We might become very efficient at producing software nobody feels connected to.

Building software with meaning

I miss the feeling of building something meaningful.

I miss challenging architecture decisions. I miss deep technical discussions. I miss the excitement of solving hard problems with people who care.

Because the best software is not created by the fastest person typing the most code.

It is created by people who understand the problem, care about the users, and bring their experience into every decision.

I love building useful products. I love seeing customers happy because something we created solved a real problem. I love software engineering because it is a craft.

AI can help us create faster. It can help us explore more. It can remove friction.

But we should be careful not to remove the very things that make building software meaningful.

The future of engineering should not be humans versus AI.

It should be humans using AI while protecting curiosity, craftsmanship, and ownership.

Because without those things, we are not building software. We are just generating output.

Epilogue

Thank you for reading my messy thoughts, since today i got laid off because my company wants to be AI native, it felt appropriate to share my fears for the future to a bunch of strangers.