Experienced engineers still matter
I'm an old-school software engineer: design patterns, domain-driven design, TDD, all the things. I took a class from Ralph Johnson during my CS master's at UIUC. I loved the craft for a long time and still do. I miss writing code, and I also understand that the role has completely changed.
All of that still matters, but in a different way. You don't need to read every line of code now, but you need to find a way to bring your experience and preferences into the work. There's no single way to do this.
I still believe the people who benefit most from AI coding tools are the people with experience and battle scars. They also seem to be among the hardest to convince that this is real.
Originally posted on X. Lightly edited for reading here.